Fixing a Broken Galaxy
by Tekli
Summary: [vignette][TUF AU] Mara reflects on the nature of the Skywalker family, especially her husband, after Luke's death. [LukeMara]


**Title: **Fixing a Broken Galaxy  
**Author: **Tekli  
**Rating: **K  
**Genre: **Angst/Romance  
**Pairings: **Luke/Mara  
**Spoilers: **For the end of The Unifying Force... sort of.  
**Warnings: **Character death, AU  
**Disclaimer: **Star Wars does not belong to me, fortunately. Luke doesn't belong to me either, unfortunately.

"_He's been envemonated by Shimrra's amphistaff," Nom Anor said. "There is no antidote. If the Force can't heal him, he will die."  
The Unifying Force_

Ever the immature farmboy, your Force presence teases me. I sense you, yet I can't meld minds with you, as we did for all of our life together. I know you aren't here. I saw you go. You exist merely in the Force, but I can't help to see you in Ben. He has more of me in his hair, and he thankfully inherited my height, but his eyes… The gray has faded from them, and in its wake is an innocent cerulean. He lies in my arms, staring up at me. He knows something awful has happened; I know he wants to fix it. His eyes are shimmering just like yours did whenever someone you loved was hurt – and of course, you needed to make it right.

What is it with Skywalkers and fixing things? Of course there's the mechanical aspect (Vader always personally repaired his TIE – did I ever tell you that?), but even Darth Vader – I know you're reprimanding me, you do still live somewhat – Anakin Skywalker sacrificed himself in order to fix the galaxy he had broken. And you, Luke, you were even worse than your father. I can only imagine how Ben will turn out. Every problem was yours to fix; every wrong yours to right. It's as if you were born to be the galaxy's personal mechanic. I thought on Niruan I had dampened that instinct, made you more rational, but I suppose I was wrong. Could anyone have muffled an instinct so essential to you? Would you be here if I was successful? It was that desire that ultimately destroyed you. It lured you to the edge of death so many times only to fail, but everyone's luck has limits. I imagine even Han's does.

As much as it irritated me, and now breaks my heart – you aren't here to fix it, this time – I think it might have been your altruism that made me instinctively love you. It did physically bring you to me on Niruan, but it goes beyond that, goes beyond it saving me from the Emperor's voice so long ago. Goes beyond the countless others, even random strangers, it has saved over the years. There was something to you, Luke, that made you such a beautiful mystery. You were not innocent, and yet you were the truest innocent I have ever known.

I know you weren't naïve. Sure, you might have been in comparison to Han or Lando, but it was more optimism than naïveté. You knew the depths the galaxy could sink to, you'd been there, and yet you always held on to hope. So childlike, so ignorant at times, but that was you. Your soul refused to give up on the light you knew existed, even in the darkest times.

Your soul resided in your eyes.

Every subtle emotion would dance upon your eyes in the form of light, that light you always saw, even when the rest of us couldn't. The light became even more prominent whenever you decided that something was wrong. So often I saw your eyes, seemingly of ice, melt into the purest water, reflecting the pain of the galaxy back at itself. You cared for anyone, worthy of your love or not. Did your intuition tell you something the rest of us wouldn't be able to understand?

If the Force is kind, Ben, with your eyes that entrance the light, will know too.

Then I will know you are still here.

**Author's Note: **My first vignette ever with any real merit. (I wrote this before what's posted earlier here, I just uploaded them in a different order.)

This was originally posted on at http:boards. I'm very sorry to anybody who has missed me for the past half year or so on that board. (I doubt there are many, though, but I'm thinking of **Pariah**... I MISS YOU ADOPTER) I went to camp for three weeks, and as my obsession with Star Wars had faded somewhat (to be replaced with Tales of Symphonia and the Matrix), and that I didn't have internet for months afterward, I couldn't really convince myself to take the effort to get back into it. I'm so awful and lazy...

"Betaed" by my little brother, if you can call it that... he didn't really do anything...

Thank you for reading... this author's note has gone on far too long...


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